Where Normal Need Not Apply
In the comments of my last post about watching our online behavior, some people worried about the bigger picture. Can we still be true to ourselves? Should we not express opinions at all? Would it be safer to stay offline? Let’s work through those questions in reverse order. Locking ourselves […]
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When we interact with people in real life, we’re often advised not to talk about politics or religion. Bringing up those emotionally charged topics is a good way to start arguments with strangers and friends alike. Yet I’ve seen countless authors, aspiring and published, break this rule online. If they’re […]
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We’ve probably all heard the phrase: Fake it until you make it. The idea is that we’re supposed to act the way we want others to see us, and we’ll be treated the way we want. The concept can be applied to our personal life as well as our professional […]
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Publishing industry news has exploded with stories about a new genre, called New Adult. The New Adult genre is meant to bridge the supposed gap between Young Adult (teen) books and general Adult fiction books. Every news site from the New York Times to Publishers Weekly has been giving their […]
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Most of us who blog think having guest posts is a “good” thing. We bring in others outside our expertise. We expose our blog to their followers. We get to take a break in our blogging schedule. Heck, I’ve written about the benefits of guest posts. But there’s a hidden […]
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If you’ve sent out queries, you’ve probably received rejections. They usually say things along the line of: “This is just my opinion and others may feel differently.” “Just because I wasn’t drawn in doesn’t mean others won’t love it.” “Publishing is a subjective business and another agent would be better suited to your work.” […]
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In my last post, we talked about voice and how we tend to write the same types of characters, premises, and themes over and over. That’s not a bad thing. Those stories resonate with us as writers. Similarly, there are stories we would never write. Stories might be so against our internal grain […]
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I’ve been having a great conversation with Serena Yung in the comments of one of my posts about voice from a few weeks ago, so voice has been on my mind again this week. When I found a fantastic article by author Julie Leto about voice and how it relates to our writing, […]
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Our brand is the impression others have of us. So we all have a brand, whether we know it or not. Hopefully, we’re building a brand that reflects who we really are, in a way that shows us at our best (however we each define “best”). Once we have a […]
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No, that’s not a rhetorical or trick question. Recent events in the publishing industry have left me asking that as a serious point of confusion and discouragement. I know this is an ongoing complaint about the state of literature. Over a century ago, people complained about penny dreadfuls and dime novels, and […]
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